USA

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the administration of President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in order to have a positive impact on the situation in Yemen.

The organisation stated in a report published on its website: "The parties to the armed conflict in Yemen have continued to violate the laws of war over the past year, including committing what appear to be new war crimes."

New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) WhatsApp has decided to delay the rollout of its new policy update to May 15 after massive criticism from users globally, including India, over concerns that data was being shared with its parent company Facebook.

The move assumes significance for users in India given that the country is among the biggest markets for WhatsApp with over 400 million users.

In a blog post, WhatsApp said it is moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump will leave Washington, D.C. Wednesday morning shortly before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, with a grandeur ceremony being planned for his departure, U.S. media reported Friday.

The Associated Press cited people familiar with the plan as saying the farewell ceremony, to be held in Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, will probably feature the reception Trump used to get as president during state visits abroad, "complete with a red carpet, color guard, military band and even a 21-gun salute."

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for "far greater solidarity" in his video message on the 2 millionth death from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In the memory of those two million souls, the world must act with far greater solidarity. Now is the time," the UN chief said, highlighting the fact that "our world has reached a heart-wrenching milestone: the COVID-19 pandemic has now claimed two million lives."

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More Californians than ever are dying from the coronavirus -- a knee-bucking 525 every day — and with the number expected to keep climbing state officials said Friday they are sending more refrigerated trailers to act as makeshift morgues for overwhelmed county coroner’s offices.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York prosecutors conducted an hourslong interview Thursday of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, asking a range of questions about Trump’s business dealings, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

The interview focused in part on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his biggest and longest standing creditor, according to the three people, who weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

NEW YORK (AP) — Justice Department lawyers asked a federal appeals court Friday to replace President Donald Trump with the United States as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says he raped her in the 1990s.

The lawyers filed papers in an appeal of a lower-court Manhattan judge’s ruling denying the substitution in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, a columnist who in a June 2019 book described her encounter with Trump at an upscale Manhattan department store.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is likely to start after Joe Biden’s inauguration, and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is telling senators their decision on whether to convict the outgoing president over the Capitol riot will be a “vote of conscience.”

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to boost supplies of coronavirus vaccine and set up new vaccination sites to meet his goal of 100 million shots in 100 days. It’s part of a broader COVID strategy that also seeks to straighten out snags in testing and ensure minority communities are not left out.

“Some wonder if we are reaching too far,” Biden said Friday. “Let me be clear, I’m convinced we can get it done.”

The real payoff, Biden said, will come from uniting the nation in a new effort grounded in science.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The Trump administration early Saturday carried out its 13th federal execution since July, an unprecedented run that concluded just five days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden — an opponent of the federal death penalty.

Dustin Higgs, convicted in the killings of three women in a Maryland wildlife refuge in 1996, was the third to receive a lethal injection this week at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.